By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Financial stocks led the broader market down Wednesday as Citigroup Inc. said it would shed a Belgian unit and the U.S. dollar strengthened against the euro.
Citigroup Inc. C -2.68% is reportedly selling its Belgian retail unit to French bank Credit Mutuel Nord Europe for an undisclosed price in a deal to close some time in the second quarter. Shares of Citigroup fell 2% in recent activity. Read more on Citi's sale of Belgian unit.
Bank of America Corp. BAC -2.92% was the worst performing stock on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.95% for a second day this week. Shares fell 2.5% in recent activity.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF XLF -1.30% , which tracks the financial components of in the S&P 500 Index SPX -1.02% , fell 1%. The SPDR S&P Bank Index KBE -1.65% fell 1.6%. Of the 10 sectors on the S&P 500, financials performed the worst on Wednesday just as they had on Tuesday.
The broader U.S. market got off to a rough start Wednesday as the euro fell below $1.30 and Italy sold about $11.8 billion in six-month bills at a yield of 3.25%, well below their level of more than 6.5% in late November. Read more about the euro, Italy bond auction.
Other notable decliners in the financial sector included Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK -2.05% , Regions Financial Corp. RF -3.67% , Capitol One Financial Corp. COF -1.11% , and American International Group Inc. AIG -2.18%
Wallace Witkowski is a MarketWatch news editor in San Francisco.
